How better to examine ourselves as humanity than to compare and contrast ourselves to that which is not human? Such is the heart of Alien novels. Often, the alien comes in the form of an invasion, so the books praise the resilience of humanity. Sometimes, the aliens come as refugees; those books probe humanity’s generous and comforting nature; we don’t always fair well under that scrutiny.

The word Alien comes from the Old French alien which means strange or foreign. It developed from the Latin alienus which means belonging to another and has the root word of alius which means other.

We generally think of alien referring to someone or something that came from another place. However, it can also imply that whatever the alien thing is belongs here but gives its allegiance to another place, time, government, religion, etc. For example, a colony is an alien entity because it owes its allegiance to a government in a different location.

The concept of aliens from outer space has been mentioned throughout history. The science fiction term was first coined in 1950.

The Day the Earth Stood Still by Harry Bates 1951 ASIN: B00005JKFR and War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells 1898 ISBN: 978-1936594054 are classic examples of this subgenre’s ability to evaluate and investigate humanity at its best and worst.